Master of Strange Dao

Chapter 1625 - 437: Clash of Light and Darkness, No Backing Out

What's going on with Jiu Nian?...

Jiu Nian was charging forward with the main Black Sky Devil army when suddenly a streak of spirit light, like a plow, swept across from the northeast, turning a huge number of Devils into dust on the spot.

Jiu Nian glanced over; a powerful cultivator was fighting Devils over there, and the force of their clash had spilled over to this side.

He detoured slightly and kept moving forward, but it wasn't long before the power from another battle between experts spread over here and swept across in front of him again.

The earth split open with a north–south rift that ran straight through, and within that rift, countless Devil cannon fodder were obliterated.

From that crack, dense Death Qi billowed up, drifting and swirling, turning into a black curtain that shrouded the front.

This time, Jiu Nian felt something in his heart, suddenly turned around, and looked toward the east from afar.

He didn't say anything, but he felt that something had happened.

That sense of déjà vu appeared once more.

And this feeling was exactly what he had sensed back then, right before he was suppressed into the Endless Darkness.

At that time, he'd gotten carried away and hadn't paid much attention at all.

Now, after ignoring the warning and getting a brutal beating, he'd learned his lesson; he roughly understood that this had to be the handiwork of that one in the deep sea.

Cannot be spoken, must not be spoken—but action was still possible; reminders could be given in other ways.

And the extent of what could be done was directly tied to how much the "unmodifiable person" was involved.

Jiu Nian calmed himself, gazed at the suddenly rising black curtain of Death Qi ahead, and stopped in his tracks.

He slowly concealed his aura, hiding himself beneath the violent Demonic Qi of the Devils here, then turned around and headed back.

...

In the deep sea, the Ancient God was still constantly interfering, because as time went on, He discovered that the things He could interfere with and alter were sharply decreasing, and this absolutely wasn't because of Jiu Nian.

He gathered a small momentum, using tiny splashes of spray to remind Jiu Nian.

No matter whether there was a huge pit waiting for Jiu Nian to jump into or not, the Ancient God would never allow matters to develop to the point of complete loss of control; things had already slipped out of control once before.

And that time, it was precisely because He had personally created an unmodifiable fellow that, later on, a much greater loss of control had been triggered.

Good or bad, at this stage, it was best not to let a total loss of control occur.

Given Jiu Nian's situation, once he lost control, it would, in all likelihood, not be anything good.

The Ancient God was still at work, but mixed in with the waves He stirred up were still inconspicuous snowflakes that floated up every now and then.

Within the long river of the past, when the Ancient God stirred up waves, as they fell back down, there would always be some tiny, easily overlooked, even smaller changes.

...

Jiu Nian began to turn around on the spot and walked back.

Meanwhile, Yang, who had been waiting there for a long time, was still waiting for Jiu Nian to charge straight through and rush into the Big Array.

The Compass he'd crafted—even with some Black Scale added in—being able to indicate a rough direction within five hundred li was already its limit.

He calculated the time when the Compass would first start sensing, when Jiu Nian stepped into the five-hundred-li radius around him, and then factored in the pace of the Devil army's charge.

At this moment, he had already deduced that if Jiu Nian had blended into the Devil army, he should have already entered the range of the Big Array.

Just as he was about to make his move, his brows twitched slightly, and his eyes turned into dragon eyes; he saw the Devil flood starting to split, those Devils becoming even more violent and crazed, some even starting to fight among themselves.

There were also Devils that fell to the ground, immediately trampled into meat paste by the surging Devil flood from behind.

Chaos erupted in that instant.

The Big Array could cover a hundred li, but the very front of the Devil horde had only just rushed into about fifty li—stuck at exactly the midpoint.

Yang fell silent for a moment and did not take action immediately; instead, he contacted Yu Ziqing.

"I need a fix on his position."

"I'm a hundred li west of Almsgiving Town, and the needle is roughly pointing to the southwest-by-northwest.

So he didn't follow the deduced route? Did something happen?"

"No, I just suddenly felt something strange just now, but couldn't pin it down. At a time like this, any anomaly must be treated with caution. I need you to assist with the locating."

Yang opened his eyes, looked at the rough direction indicated by his own needle, then immediately constructed a map in his mind. After marking on it the directions of his needle and Yu Ziqing's needle and all related factors, he arrived at a rough intersection point.

After half-incense burning's time, Yang asked again.

With the updated positioning directions, he roughly drew two more lines; this time, the approximate intersection point clearly shifted further to the west than before.

"We can't wait; he's starting to retreat, heading east.

He's definitely discovered something, or sensed something.

This positioning isn't very accurate; we can only narrow it down to within a fifty-li radius.

But that's not enough, far from enough—the margin of error is too big.

He has a high chance of slipping away; we can't gamble on that.

After being caught once, he will never fall for it a second time.

I need time to drop the array, to make sure we trap him in it in one go."

"Understood."

Yu Ziqing replied, glanced at the rough direction indicated by the Compass, estimated the general location, drew a slow breath, and took out a pendant.

The Black Mountain Demon King pendant.

Standing high in the sky, he stepped out once and rapidly arrived within the approximate area. After checking the direction indicated by the Compass, he gently tossed out the Black Mountain Demon King pendant.

"If you don't want to be refined to death alive, I'll give you a quick one today."

The pendant slowly fell, and in the next moment, Yu Ziqing was seen gripping the rusty sword and suddenly drawing it.

From within the Short Sword, what was drawn out was instead a longsword three chi and three cun in length.